Board sports such as surfing, skateboarding, snowboarding, snow skiing, kite boarding, and wakeboarding are widely practiced athletic activities. Unfortunately, board sports equipment, such as surf boards, skateboards, snowboards, snow skis, kite boards, and wakeboards, etc., can be cumbersome to transport from place to place, especially in instances where there is any distance from where a participant parks their vehicle and the location where the activity is to be enjoyed.
In this regard, recreational sports equipment carrying apparatus, or bags, are often utilized to transport recreational sports equipment. Recreational sports equipment bags are typically shaped in the general oblong shape of a conventional material. Some recreational sports equipment bags include handles or straps, and others include pockets. As such, the current types of recreational sports equipment bags offered permit basic transportation of recreational sports equipment along with a limited amount of related items. However, there are several drawbacks associated with current recreational sports equipment bag designs.
One such drawback is that current recreational equipment carrying bags require the sports equipment to be carried and transported under the user's arm, over the head, or strapped over one shoulder (see for instance US2010/0006469 A1 and U.S. Pat. No. 6,536,638 B1). These bags cause unneeded stress on a user's shoulder, requiring a user to frequently change how they are carrying a board to and from its use. Where there is any distance between a user's parked vehicle and the area for the recreational activity, conventional methods are thus inadequate in this respect. Some equipment storage bags have attempted a solution where the recreational equipment is carried using two shoulder straps, similar to that of a back pack, however these solutions are complicated, are not user friendly, and in some instances don't allow for the free use of a user's arms during transport (see for instance US2013/0043291 A1 and US 2008/0185409 A1).
Another drawback is that conventional recreational equipment carrying apparatus are only designed for a single use, to carry only the board they were designed. When not in use, these bags have no other utility for other recreational activities, or as simply a back pack for carrying smaller items. Conventional recreational equipment carriers are often large and bulky so that they are difficult to use, and when not in use cannot be easily stored, thus their limited use and unease of storage makes them undesirable and obsolete.
Another drawback with current recreational equipment carrying apparatus do not adequately accommodate all shapes and/or sizes of recreational equipment. Accordingly, recreational equipment which does not fit into the storage apparatus will leave excess room, or slack, in the larger sized bag, which undesirably permits the board to move freely within the storage apparatus and potentially become damaged, and create an added burden on the user carrying the device as the contents in the bag shift. It would therefore be beneficial to provide a recreational equipment carrier which has the ability to be modified to adapt to variety of recreational equipment shapes and/or sizes.
Another issue with current recreational equipment carriers is that few have pockets to store other items. Some do allow storage of smaller items such as wallets, keys, phones), and even fewer have the storage capacity to store larger necessary items such as clothing, shoes, flip flops, towels, books, etc. Those that do accommodate these larger items usually cannot carry these items while carrying the recreational equipment, thus frustrating the purpose of an all-inclusive storage apparatus for a recreational sporting event. Moreover, the few devices which include pockets do not incorporate materials to isolate dampness or wetness, thus allowing moisture from inside of the bag to seep out to the exterior of the bag and come into unwanted contact with other items. Likewise, such bags also allow wetness from outside of the bag to seep into the bag. Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide a recreational equipment bag with adequate storage capacity for other items while substantially preventing seepage of wetness from the interior of the case to the exterior of the case, or vice versa.
No such recreational equipment storage apparatus has been presented to date to address these issues.